<chapter>
<title>chapter I 2 LOOMINGS</title>
<para>Call me Ishmael. Some years ago--never mind how long
precisely --having little or no money in my purse, and nothing
particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a
little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of
driving off the spleen, and regulating the circulation. Whenever I
find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp,
drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily
pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of
every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such
an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to
prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and
methodically knocking people&apos;s hats off--then, I account it high
time to get to sea as soon as I can.</para>
<para>This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical
flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the
ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost
all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly
the same feelings towards the ocean with me. There now is your
insular city of the Manhattoes, belted round by wharves as Indian
isles by coral reefs--commerce surrounds it with her surf.</para>
<para>Right and left, the streets take you waterward. Its extreme down-
town is the battery, where that noble mole is washed by waves,
and cooled by breezes, which a few hours previous were out of
sight of land. Look at the crowds of water-gazers there.
Circumambulate the city of a dreamy Sabbath afternoon. Go from
Corlears Hook to Coenties Slip, and from thence, by Whitehall
northward. What do you see?--Posted like silent sentinels all
around the town, stand thousands upon thousands of mortal men
fixed in ocean reveries. Some leaning against the spiles; some
seated upon the pier-heads; some looking over the bulwarks
glasses of ships from China; some high aloft in the rigging, as if
striving to get a still better seaward peep. But these are all
landsmen; of week days pent up in lath and plaster--tied to
counters, nailed to benches, clinched to desks. How then is this?
Are the green fields gone? What do they here? But look! here
come more crowds, pacing straight for the water, and seemingly
bound for a dive. Strange! Nothing will content them but the
extremest limit of the land; loitering under the shady lee of yonder
warehouses will not suffice. No. They must get just as nigh the
water as they possibly can without falling in. And there they
stand--miles of them--leagues. Inlanders all, they come from
lanes and alleys, streets and avenues, --north, east, south, and
west. Yet here they all unite. Tell me, does the magnetic virtue of
the needles of the compasses of all those ships attract them
thither? Once more. Say, you are in the country; in some high
land of lakes. Take almost any path you please, and ten to one it
carries you down in a dale, and leaves you there by a pool in the
stream. There is magic in it. Let the most absent-minded of men
be plunged in his deepest reveries--stand that man on his legs,
set his feet a-going, and he will infallibly lead you to water, if
water there be in all that region. Should you ever be athirst in the
great American desert, try this experiment, if your caravan
happen to be supplied with a metaphysical professor. Yes, as
every one knows, meditation and water are wedded for ever.</para>
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